Web Works

Today Karen, Kris, and Maria worked on painting the guest room. I worked on making pumpkin bread. This morning the fog put droplets all over the local spider webs. While I was trying to photograph one the black background paper touched the web, transferring the moisture pattern to the paper. Flour sprinkled on the paper stuck to the wet parts, creating a web image. I thought this looked pretty cool and unique, but I found something on the internet that is somewhat similar and less weather-dependent, see: https://pobox.bradley.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wvdnr.gov/Wildlife/SummerCastings.shtm. Rex the orb weaver is still hanging out by our mailbox. I fed him a beetle today.

Soccer win

Kris's soccer team won their first tournament game tonight. Kris's school, Peoria Christian School, also got a Blue Ribbon award from the government for scoring well on standardized exams - less than 400 schools (only 50 private schools) nationwide earned this honor.

Woods pix

Pix from Lauterbach Park near Bartonville, before the rains came. Here are lyrics to a song that has been popping into my head on occasion lately:

"Thought You'd Be Here" by Wes King

We thought you'd be here by now

Your mother and I

We're praying through our tears that somehow

We might hear your sweet cry

Have we waited too long

It's getting harder to be strong

Is there something we've done wrong?

But if you like dancing

I'll make it rain rhythm, and rhyme, and melodies, child

And if you like dreaming

Your mother will make your imagination run wild

Somehow,

We thought you'd be here by now

We have a room just for you upstairs

It's right down the hall

So we'll be close should you ever get scared

We'll come when you call

It's a room full of stories

Waiting to be told

Longing to behold

And if you like laughing

I'll paint you a circus of smiles and ferris wheels, dear

And if you like living

Your mother will fly you to worlds both far and near

Somehow...

I never knew the silence could make me so deaf

I never knew that I could miss someone I've never met

Miss someone I haven't met, yet

We'll be waiting

Assorted pix

Last night and today we worked a bit on converting the guest room into a bedroom for a second child. The process will take a little time. We do not yet know when we will be traveling to China. We watched a Mandarin language DVD the other day, hoping some of it will stick. I swept the chimney today, and as a result got some Mary Poppins songs into my head. I invited Kris up to the roof for a look around. The picture of the riverboat was taken on the way to Kris's final game of the season. They WON (with one tie and the rest losses). The team pic was taken afterward as the kids were trying to look tough. The first game of their tournament starts Monday. Tonight was St. Anthony's annual picnic. Our state representative Jehan Gordon stopped by to present a certificate noting the 40th anniversary of our parish. Karen and I got a chance to talk to her and bring up the issue of Illinois potentially cutting funding for MAP grants for college students - NOT good for the students. She said she is working to push for funding for that program, and she encouraged us and others to write to the governor about it. She looks really young!

Orb Weaver

This sizable spider has taken up residence near our mailbox. It is pretty big and makes beautiful webs. We call it "Rex".

In other news, we have signed a critical piece of adoption paperwork today.

Trip to Springfield

I had a meeting to attend in Springfield this morning at the Illinois State Museum. It is really close to the state capitol building. Afterward I stopped by the governor's mansion. It was closed to tours at that time and hard to see through all the trees. I found the GPS to be very handy to get around in downtown Springfield. Maybe that is why Blagojevich didn't go there much - he couldn't find his way to the mansion! Kris's soccer team played again tonight.

Pumpkin mouse

One of our little pumpkins ripened up, so Kris decorated it.

5th anniversary of Mt. St. Helens climb

I'm not a big fan of living in the past, though I know I do so too much anyway. Today is the fifth anniversary of when I climbed up Mt. St. Helens. It is one of the coolest (if only to me) and most physically challenging things I have ever done. Thanks again, Dace, for helping make that dream a reality. A longer description of that escapade is located at: http://bradley.bradley.edu/~campbell/MSHclimb.htm. That event (and training for it), helped solidify my obsession with playing around in the mountains. Of course I would like to do it again - if only I could figure out how to train for altitude while living at only 600 feet above sea level! Maybe next time I could drag along the rest of the family...

On the cusp of autumn...

Busy week this week (first full week of classes). Since Bradley University has classes on Labor Day we did not travel far away this weekend. (We do take off in October for Fall Break, which is better.) We drove to Wyoming, IL, where we biked/walked on the Rock Island Trail. The trail, which was once a rail line, starts much closer to Peoria, but some of the more interesting aspects of the trail (a train station and a trestle over the Spoon River) were nearby where we started. We took the trail to the town limits of Toulon, IL, and back, giving us a 9.4 mile trip. The trail was pretty level and covered with limestone chips. It mostly goes through farm country, but a large part of the trail is tree-lined, essentially a long, narrow woods. A few leaves are just starting to turn and fall - I imagine in a month things will look quite pretty. After this, we traveled to Tanner's Orchard to pick a peck of Honey Crisp apples. I'm not a huge apple fan, but they are pretty good. We have not been to Tanner's for years, and it is a nice way to celebrate fall...OK, OK, it felt a little premature, but hey, we were in the area. There were interesting things to sample, the cider was great, the green bean "chips" (dried green beans) weren't bad, the baby beet balls were not what I expected, and the apple salsa was pretty good. Of course we bought apple cider doughnuts and the smells were wonderful (this is the thing I think of most when I think of Tanners). Of course I had to get a picture of Karen with a bunch of other "mums". Kris is somewhat outgrowing the little kid stuff, which was a little sad, but on the other hand, she is sophisticated enough now to enjoy listening to the Bill Cosby tape that I rediscovered in a box in the basement last night - I used to listen to it in college.